re:View Black Bunny Fibers BFL Sock

Few people are able to take the experience garnered from helping their children with a craft project and turn it into a full-fledged business venture. Black Bunny Fiber’s Carol Sulcoski, however, did exactly that. After experimenting with Kool Aid, Ms. Sulcoski switched to professional dyes and took her friends’ suggestion by posting her hand dyed yarn on Etsy. From there, she moved to her own website where she—with some assistance from bunny Charcoal, after which her business is named—continues to dye and sell yarn and spinning fiber, including wool from endangered breeds which she sometimes finds at fiber shows.

Ms. Sulcoski’s approach to dyeing produces a wide array of colorways ranging from the more subtly shaded Algae and Grape Goulash to the bold variegation of How Now and Paper Parasol, so even those who prefer a the calmest color scheme will likely find something to love. In either case, the colors are a richly saturated visual treat. How Now caught my attention and, over the holidays, someone was kind enough to give me a skein of Black Bunny Fibers BFL Sock yarn in that very colorway.

I've never actually giggled while winding yarn because it was so soft it tickled my fingers. Blue-Faced Leicester certainly falls into that category. BFL, according to the Blue-Faced Leicester Union website, is classified as a longwool breed. This means that, typically, the wool has a longer staple length—between three and six inches per strand—and micron count of about 26. In layman’s terms, the lower the micron count, the finer the wool, and the finer the wool, the softer the end product is likely to be, which is exactly why the yarn tickled my fingers when I wound it up. And that’s also why the finished yarn is such a delight to knit with.

That the yarn is soft has already been established. While not as tightly spun as some sock yarns, it’s still spun tightly enough to have a slightly bouncy texture and—joy!—lack of splittiness when confronted by sharp, pointy DPNs. There’s a subtle sheen that shows up in low light and is probably impossible to photograph, but it only adds to the experience by enhancing the visual appeal. Even finding a pattern to suit the wild unusual color combination was less of a challenge because, perhaps not by coincidence, Ms. Sulcoski also happens to have provided a solution in the form of the book Knitting Socks With Handpainted Yarn, to which she and a number of well known sock knitters contributed patterns. My hank of How Now is slowly turning into a pair of Whirlpool Socks, and I’m very pleased with the results.

Black Bunny Fiber's BFL sock yarn: soft, shimmery, splashed with saturated colors. It’s hard not to develop a soft spot for it.

re: View: Patons SWS

Soy sauce, tofu, roasted soy beans for a snack, biodiesel... and yarn? Like the notion of using ethanol to power automobiles, the idea of using soy fiber for textiles has been around for quite awhile; during the 1940s, Henry Ford hired chemists to begin working on a way to process soy protein into fiber. There are even pictures of Ford wearing a suit made from soy fiber, but the idea fell by the wayside and it was only recently that the textile industry began to pick up where Ford left off. According to the Southwest Trading Company, the American government chose to endorse the use of nylon and rayon instead of soy.

Soy fiber production, according to several sources, goes something like this: After tofu is produced, the factory gathers any remaining residue which is then liquefied and extruded in long strands which are then cut, wet-spun, and acetylated. This process creates filaments which, rather than resembling the staples in something like wool or cotton, are similar to silk in structure and texture. It's a good way to make use of a renewable resource and minimize waste left over from manufacturing tofu. Most of the sources agree that soy fiber yarn is soft like silk, and warm like cashmere. The Southwest Trading Company, which owns the trademark in the United States, markets pure soy fiber yarn--and blends--and soy fiber for spinning; the price of processing soy protein is reflected in the prices of yarn and fiber, which is about $13 for a 200 yard skein.

So how does this tie in with Patons SWS? It's a worsted weight wool/soy blend (70% wool and 30% soy) which is easier to find (for me, at least) than pure soy yarn--it can be found at places like Michaels, as well as at specialty knitting shops, and the price is a bit less than the $13, at about $5 a ball. The yarn comes in a fairly good range of colors including self-striping colorways, most of which are muted; there are more possibilities, however, because it also comes in white and natural, which surely can be dyed if you feel like playing with KoolAid or Wilton cake dyes. The darker colors, however, are rich and inviting. The self-striping colors, rather than having distinct stripes, gradually fades from one shade into another. I must admit, though, that some of the colorways just didn't appeal to me, like the one called Natural Pink. It's more like an Easter-pastel palette for a child's basket because it has green and yellow in it.. melt-away mints, anyone? I really liked the solid colors like Raisin and Indigo, and a few among the stripy ones really appealed to me, too. Particularly the Natural Earth, Denim, and Crimson. Natural Earth was what I used for my test project, which is shown below.

I noted in my review of Lopi yarn that the loosely spun singles split easily and pulled apart with a minimum of encouragement; this was not the case with the SWS, which is also a loosely spun single. While it did split on a few occasions if I got careless with the knitting needles, it was a lot more difficult to pull the strand apart, which meant I could pull the stitches a lot tighter than I could have done with the Lopi. Maybe this was due to the length and structure of the soy filaments and the way they combine with the wool staples? It's not completely unknown for single strands to have slubby sections in them, and I did run into one.. and it was a fairly long, thick one measuring about seven inches. Fortunately, the project I chose for the yarn wasn't one that wasn't extremely dependent on gauge; unfortunately, however, I didn't choose a project that will test how well the yarn breathes or wicks moisture, or the Itch Factor... like socks. I suspect the yarn would work reasonably well for next-to-the-skin garments because of.. well, keep reading.

But the yarn! It's so incredibly soft that the only word I can think of to describe it is luscious. That softness makes it a true tactile pleasure to work with, as does the diminished frequency of yarn pulling apart at the drop of a hat. The only problem, though--and it's not a huge one--is that the yarn is so soft it slides right off metal needles. I had a couple instances where I held up my knitting to see how things progressed, and the needles slipped out and fell on the floor; after that happened twice, I got annoyed and decided to switch to bamboo needles. Bamboo has a less slippery finish than metal--the same thing applies to wood, too--which drags against the yarn enough to keep things from falling off the needles. The stitch definition is pretty good, but the yarn is fuzzy enough to make it act similarly to a mohair or angora blend, which sort of softens the overall result, almost making it seem like a piece of impressionist art. That's probably what Monet would have gone for if he'd been in textiles instead of painting.

So, soy is soft and luscious--can I say it again? Luscious!--and pleasing to the touch as well as the eye. As far as I'm concerned, it's a knitting experience worth repeating.

re: View: Lite Lopi

What's so special about Lopi yarn? Could be the long history of the breed whose wool makes up the yarn, or it could be the circumstances under which the sheep produce their wool, or it could be the way it knits up. According to the Lopi History on kertzer.com, the vikings brought sheep with them when they arrived in Iceland about eleven hundred years ago, and used them as both food and fiber sources, the latter of which was even more advantageous because the woven fiber is warm and fairly waterproof--a necessity in such a chilly environment--while still being soft enough to be comfortable. The coats of these sheep, according to Wikipedia, is made up of two separate layers: an inner layer of light, fine fibers called "pel", which is short, soft, and crinkly, and provides good insulation against the cold, and the stronger, coarser outer layer called "tog", which are more water repellent. The irregularities in staple length, when spun, lend these qualities to the resulting yarn, which is sold in three weights, and a wide range of colors:
Lopi - 100 gram balls/100 metres, 6 mm needle
Gauge: St st: 13 = 10 cm (4 inches)
Lopi Light - 50 gram balls/100 metres, 5 mm needle
Gauge: St st: 18 = 10 cm (4 inches)
Bulky Lopi – 100 gram hank/60 metres, 8 mm needle
Gauge: St st: 10sts = 10cm (4 inches)
About two weeks ago, I found some of this stuff on eBay. True, it's about twenty years old, but it's still perfectly good. Yarn, as far as I'm aware, doesn't have an expiration date. Before I started bidding on the yarn, I asked questions on the two Yahoo fiber forums to which I belong; the questions resulted in mixed responses from some of the other members: it's fuzzy and soft, it felts too easily, it's itchy, it's not itchy, things knitted from it are sturdy and likely to last a long time, it's not suited to certain projects, and so on. Ahh, a puzzle!
Since this didn't really answer the question, I decided to go ahead and start knitting something with the yarn in question. Right away I noticed that yes, it is very fuzzy, and because it's made up of loosely spun singles, it tends to pull apart if you tug the stitches too tight; this seems to be the case with any yarn that's not plied or spun fairly tight. It's so fuzzy, in fact, that someone suggested using a razor to shave any articles you knit with it... unless you favor the fuzzy look. This is not to say that it's as shaggy as the sheep the yarn comes from, I assure you!
While I didn't find it very itchy at the outset, I did find that it's a good idea to wear jeans while I'm knitting with it, because it does start to prickle after a little while, especially since the weather is hot and EVERYTHING is inclined to feel prickly. As far as softness goes, I do find it nice and fluffy, due in part to the fact that it's a loosely spun single. The only problem, though, is that those nice, soft, fluffy singles pull apart so easily that it can be frustrating. Imagine happily knitting away, and then you pull the stitch too tight, and the yarn comes apart. Far as I can tell, the only remedy for this is to just not pull the stitches as tightly as you would under other circumstances with plied yarn, which can occasionally cause some gauge problems if you're not careful.
A common complaint among knitters on the fiber forums I frequent is something called splitting, which is what happens when the tips of your knitting needles slip between the layers of plied wool while you're working; it happens to all knitters at once in awhile, but it's not fatal. Since Lopi isn't plied, however, it doesn't split the same way: the needle tip pokes through the single at points where it's getting ready to pull apart instead of between plies. Some experienced knitters suggest that splitting can be less of a problem depending on the material your knitting needles are made of; some say it happens less frequently using metal needles, while others swear it happens less often with bamboo or wood. At any rate, Lopi does just fine on my KnitPicks needles--no, that's not a shameless plug for KnitPicks--which are nickle plated.
At the moment I'm knitting a pullover with the maroon and light gray yarn, and I'm finding the experience mostly pleasant. Except when I have to keep tying the ends of the yarn together after it pulls apart. It's soft, it's lofty, it's warm even in its unknitted form, and it's certainly suited to a variety of projects, with the possible exception of socks because of felting concerns--unless you intended to make felted bedsocks or slippers in the first place.
So what is so special about Lopi yarn? It's durable and wears well. It's soft and warm, and has a wide variety of applications. And it makes a damned nice addition to the Stash.